Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that at some level of genius. It also helps

that it's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream

van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC sounds. This is a download

from the BBC. For more information and our terms of use, go to BBC.co.uk slash radio three.

Now, I'm not sure whether this is a post-watershed warning or an invitation, but I'll be talking about the sex life of birds tonight.

And also be grappling with the legacy of a man who died 2,000 years ago this year, a chilling power player in ancient

Rome's very own house of cards.

I thought him a pleasant stripling, no more. With a face too delicate to receive the blows

of fate, with a manner too diffident to achieve purpose, and with a voice too gentle to

utter the ruthless words that a leader of men must utter.

I thought that he might become a scholar of leisure or a man of letters.

I did not think that he had the energy to become even a senator,

to which his name and wealth entitled him.

The cool operator is, of course, the Emperor Augustus,

in this case, as imagined by the American writer John Williams,

author of the acclaimed novel Stoner.

His account of Augustus's rise to power has just been reissued,

and the classicist Charlotte Higgins will be along shortly to tell me why the emperor still has a trick or two to teach us today.

But we start with politics of a different kind, the sort that defines

the relationship between France and the Arabs of North Africa, or, as the historian Andrew Hussey puts it,

the long war between France and its Arabs. That's the subtitle of his new book, The French Interfada,

which follows the guerrilla war between France and the former subjects of its empire.

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